I wasn't going to post this becuase the news was rather thin. But then I noticed that a bunch of sites (including Teleread) had posted about the demo ereaders at CES. I want to set the record straight.

The so-called "Bebook prototype with Liquavista display" was not a prototype. The screen did not work. It basically was a 6" piece of plastic glued into an empty shell. It was a mock up, not a demo.

There were no prototype ereaders in Liquavista booth. The only demos were lab samples, and they were bolted to the counter.

That being said, there are actually two new screens under development. One is gray scale and the other is color. The color screen will be released after the gray scale screen. I also have solid information on the availability. The new screen tech is no where near ready to be released. The current projected release date for e-readers with this screen is first quarter 2011.

The projected cost is at the same level as LCDs with only 1/10 the power usage.

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Last edited by Nate the great; 01-17-2010 at 07:10 PM.
Reason: correction

There was a nonfunctioning mockup Mirasol screen featured quite prominently not to long ago, and folks were all over it. Slashgear even did a photo session of the device casing it was in, even though the device was just a nonfunctioning demo unit with no real relationship to any real-world product.

This sort of thing is normal in screen demonstrations.

I never quite understood what is so hard to understand about demonstration and concept units. People seem to think that the software is somehow a real final product, that the casing is a real final product...they seem to forget that this is a technology and concept demonstration set up by a display company, which does not make the software or the casing or anything else really (well Qualcomm might make the processor or other electronic components...)

I never quite understood what is so hard to understand about demonstration and concept units. People seem to think that the software is somehow a real final product, that the casing is a real final product...

FWIW, I don't think that's necessarily the fault of the "people," whether they be professional journalists or amateurs. You can't really tell from a demo unit at CES how far out the product actually is, and the language used by the PR flacks doesn't really clarify the situation. I just take whatever date they list and add about 12 months to it, that seems to work.

Could those mock-ups in the first photo look any more like giant iPhones?

Quote:

Originally Posted by djgreedo

They look more like giant copies of the original Zune.

Actually what they look EXACTLY like is Liquavista displays shown in Onyx Boox 60 hardware , because that's what they are. Onyx and Liquavista were booth-ed next to each other at CES and decided to show this mock-up of their respective products AFTER they had met at the show. Nice publicity for both companies.